Italian scientists from the University of Milan-Bicocca and Ca’ Foscari University in Venice reported that an experiment to combat hate speech on social networks failed. The results of the research were published in the scientific journal magazine PNAS Port.
Controlling offensive and hateful content remains an ongoing challenge for online communities. The team decided to conduct an experiment by developing a set of measures to prevent unwanted user behavior.
Interventions included posters reminding us of online norms, soothing negative emotions, encouraging reflection or empathy, and emphasizing the importance of reputation.
More than 4,000 Americans participated in the trial through the Prolific online platform. They were asked to interact with a recurring news feed from one of the popular social networks.
Each volunteer was shown one of the stimuli. There was also a control group whose members were not given any instructions.
Posts in the test stream were malicious to varying degrees. Participants were asked to rate how offensive or hateful each post was.
Although none of the measures tried led to a decrease in the level of hatred, scientists pointed out that the impact of these initiatives had an unexpected effect. People who were reminded of the need to be polite online were more likely to engage with harmless content compared to the control group.
According to the authors, reminders can be helpful even if they only increase engagement with innocuous content; because increasing harmless content can dilute and suppress harmful content.
Previous scientists I learnedReading bad news repeatedly can be damaging to the soul.
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Source: Gazeta
Barbara Dickson is a seasoned writer for “Social Bites”. She keeps readers informed on the latest news and trends, providing in-depth coverage and analysis on a variety of topics.